Thursday, June 9, 2016

Orthodox Witness in a Post-Christian Culture

It is time for Orthodox Christians to
be realistic and not panic about life in an increasingly post-Christian culture.
We are a tiny minority in the West and have
never had much direct impact in shaping how the larger society in which we live
has addressed any issue, controversial or otherwise. It would be strange for a miniscule Orthodox
minority to expect a privileged position in our time and place. If current trends have opened our eyes to
points of tension between God’s Kingdom and the present order, we should be
thankful for the wake-up call.

Our calling is surely not to become
yet another interest group that competes with others through conventional
political means, or even to think of success in those terms. Instead of pursuing what the world recognizes
as power or affirmation, our vocation is basically the same that Christians
have always had: to be a distinctive,
holy community with a way of life that shines in brilliant contrast to the ways
of the world and draws others to the life of the Kingdom. But in order to have any hope of becoming
such an icon of salvation, we must actually live out what we say we believe. Ethnic food bazaars and mouthing slogans
about the culture wars will not suffice.

As hard as it is do so, we must
actually embrace the spiritual disciplines of our faith in ways that are very
much in tension with the dominant trends of the larger culture. We must live our lives in stark contrast to
the current societal celebrations of violence, hatred, gluttony, vanity, greed,
sexual immorality, and pornography—just to name a few examples of the
challenges that we face. The greater the
distance between what we say we believe and how we actually live, the more
ammunition we will give to “the cultured despisers of religion.” The more coherence others see between our
creeds and our deeds, the more seriously they will take our way of life as a
realistic alternative to the darkened patterns of the world.

Even as athletes must take their
disciplines seriously and follow the guidance of those more skilled in their
sport in order to play well, we must embrace prayer, asceticism, generosity to
the poor, forgiveness, self-denial, and other spiritual disciplines according
to the teaching and example of the Saints and our spiritual fathers and
mothers. Through the catechism of
converts and ongoing education in the parish, all Orthodox must be taught about
the challenges of living faithfully in our culture. We must model faithfulness for one another
and provide accountability and support to our brothers and sisters. The larger society supports athletics and
education (usually in that order and often not very well), but we cannot expect
it to help us in forming people whose character and actions should be so
different from those celebrated by the dominant ethos. To say the least, it
will appear increasingly odd in our culture: to see Christ in the unborn child,
the terminally ill patient, the refugee, and the immigrant; to deny ourselves
in order to be outrageously generous with the poor and needy; to refuse to let
race, class, politics, ethnicity, or any other human division blind us to the
humanity of our neighbors; to love even our fiercest critics; to pursue
chastity in the relationship between man and woman; to see marriage as a sign
of the complementarity of the opposite sexes in God’s image and likeness; and
generally not to make the world into a false god.

If we bear witness in these and
other ways, we should not be surprised at charges of bigotry and fanaticism for
being so out of step. Perhaps such
charges are simply reflections of a truth that we have too often refused to
see. Despite the very positive
dimensions of American culture, both historically and in the present day, it is
not and has never been the Kingdom of God.
Like all societies, it presents temptations and tends to serve its own
interests rather than the Lord. It would
certainly be a clearer path to immediate popularity simply to go along with
social trends at all costs, but to do so would require worshiping a false god,
namely, the world. Here we must remember
the Lord’s warning: “Woe unto you, when all
men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”
(Luke 6:26) Of course, harmony is not always a bad thing. If it
is the result of spiritually healthy beliefs and practices permeating the
larger society, then there is cause for rejoicing. If, however, that harmony is the result of
Christians accommodating their beliefs and practices to those of the larger
society in an effort to gain power or simply make life easier for themselves, then
it is time to mourn. Too much American
Christianity fits—and, as best I can tell, always has fit-- into the latter
category, regardless of whether it passes for “liberal” or “conservative,” for
“mainline,” “evangelical,” or anything else.
This is an equal opportunity temptation, and all the more subtle and
dangerous for that very reason.

Amidst our current challenges, we
must remember that Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, as the example of the
martyrs from the origins of the faith to today makes quite clear. Nonetheless, faithfulness is not the same as abandoning
the world or those who live in it. There
is no need to fall into a Manichean-like dualism that would see everything
outside the visible boundaries of the Christian community as simply evil. There is no need to fall into a Gnostic
escapism that would flee the broken realities of life in the world as we know
it for an illusory realm of spiritual perfection. There is a great need, however, for Orthodox
Christians soberly to remain faithful amidst the strong points of tension
between our way of life and dominant trends in contemporary culture.

As mentioned earlier, that should
not be surprising because Orthodoxy has had no direct impact on the West for
centuries. And at least since the
Enlightenment, a grave temptation of western culture has been to make the world
its god with, at best, a watered-down “religion within the limits of reason
alone.” Our culture increasingly knows
no higher standard than recognizing the rights of isolated individuals to
pursue well-being however they may define it.
Freedom is a good thing, and I personally would rather live in the current
cultural climate than in one characterized by crusades, pogroms, and witch
hunts; the present order certainly provides far more religious liberty than
life under Communism or ISIS. We should
want as much religious liberty as reasonably possible so that people may
believe, worship, and live in accordance with their faith, whatever that may
be.

Nonetheless, many temptations lurk
beneath the surface of the increasingly popular assumption that questions of
religion and moral decency are necessarily matters of arbitrary personal
preference that have no place in the public sphere and nothing to contribute to
conversations about the common good of a social order. There is grave danger in societies privileging
an anemic civil religion that completely relaxes the tension between God’s
kingdom and the kingdoms of the world. That is true of both right and left-wing
versions of political idolatry.

Granted, there is great variety
across the US in how these matters are handled in practice. Where I live In West Texas, Christianity is
certainly not in hiding. Indeed, some
versions of the faith are so public that some feel that they need to hide from them—and
perhaps sometimes for good reason. Such
Christianity is often a domesticated civil religion that serves agendas that
have more to do with preserving idealized manners and morals than with enabling
people actually to grow in holiness as they take up their crosses. Too often in my region, what passes for Christianity
merely provides a thin veneer of spiritual or moral respectability to political
and social projects that have little direct connection to the salvation of the
world and which obscure vital dimensions of Christian belief and witness. As such, increasing numbers of people
recognize that such versions of the faith require nothing of substance from
them and offer even less in return. As a
result, they do not take religion seriously at all, for it seems like a matter
of irrelevant personal preference often associated with hypocrisy. Or they reject Christianity because they
disagree with whatever political or social agenda has been uncritically
identified with it.

In our current cultural context,
the true witness of Orthodox Christianity has an opportunity to become more
clear, distinctive, and compelling. There
are advantages in not bearing the burden of sustaining a religious ethos for an
increasingly irreligious and decadent society.
No one is asking us to guide the legislative process, propose policies,
or otherwise take on the responsibility of articulating an ethic for a deeply
fragmented and confused social order. Consequently,
we are able to focus our energies on being salt and light. Our witness is not to pretend that the Church
or the larger culture is something that it is not; instead, it is to be deliberately
and intentionally faithful as Orthodox Christians in the areas of our lives
that are up to us and to discern prayerfully how to navigate the challenges
posed by areas that are not. The rest we leave in God's hands.

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Fr. Philip has addressed audiences at St. Herman Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak, AK, and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, NY. He has also earned lots of frequent flyer miles as an invited participant in international Orthodox consultations on social ethics in Greece, Romania, and Syria.

He often introduces visiting groups of students from local universities to the Orthodox faith. He has also spoken about Eastern Christianity at Methodist, Episcopal, and Church of Christ congregations in Abilene. You may listen to his podcasts on www.ancientfaithradio.org. He has also been interviewed on “Come Receive the Light,” an internationally syndicated radio program of the Orthodox Christian Network (www.myocn.net). Anyone wanting to invite him to speak may send an email to: plemasters@mcm.edu.